Re: Phil Keaggy in concert

["Brian Carabee" <compguy@bestweb.net>]

Hi Travis,

I saw Phil last February and he blew me away. I had never heard of looping
before as a serious art form and so I expected just a standard concert. I
was amazed at the massive walls of sound he created, and right then and
there I thought to myself "Hmm...I can do that..."!

I waited a while because I knew I'd be leaving my band soon, and then about
3 weeks ago I bought a Boomerang. Simple but effective. I'm having a great
time learning how to loop verses & choruses in my acoustic set so I can 
play
solos on top of the chords.

I'll have to check out "Freehand". I hadn't heard about that one. Thanks 
for
the report.

Brian



> I saw Phil Keaggy play last night, and that guy's a looping monster.  He
was playing amplified acoustic, and started off most tunes by quickly
building up a grooving "drum" part by tapping and slapping the body of the
guitar, often adding a shaker part by waving one over the soundhole, where
the internal mic could pick it up.  And then, he was off--singing, playing,
overdubbing, recovering quicly and gracefully from any mistakes (forgotten
lyrics, switching hiccups, whatever).  It's a cliche, but he's a one-man
band up there.  Looper's appeared to be a JamMan and DL4.  A highly
recommended performance, unless you've got a serious aversion to Christian
lyrics and a bit of between song prosyletizing.
>
> I remember a thread a few months back about building up a list of
essential looping recordings, and his name came up but no-one seemed to be
familiar enough with his extensive catalog to highlight the loop-heavy
material, but if you're interested I'd suggest Acoustic Sketches, which is
all instrumental with oodles of JamMan and liner notes for each tune by 
Phil
detailing tunings, JamMan use, etc.  It's from 1996, and he's progressed 
WAY
beyond that now, but it's still a good example.  He's also got a new
all-guitar album (Freehand) which I haven't had a chance to listen to yet,
but I suspect it's also got a bunch of looping since it seems to be a big
part of what he's up to now.
>
> TravisH